


One Fine Day

by clockwork_spider



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, awful improv acting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockwork_spider/pseuds/clockwork_spider
Summary: It had been three years since they last seen each other.Gongenzaka remembered, vaguely, the flash of orange hair amongst the sea of people, freshly uncarded. There were an eye contact and a smile, or so he remembered. The magician placed a finger to his lips and performed his disappearing act.Gongenzaka didn’t call out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For cipi127 on Tumblr, who's been such a supportive friend.

_One Fine Sunday morning, Heartland._

A street magician with orange hair gave a bow as a few of his audience clapped. Coins were tossed into his hat.

“Thank you, thank you,” he rose, and gave his audience a wide smile.

Their eyes met.

* * *

It had been three years since they last seen each other.

Gongenzaka remembered, vaguely, the flash of orange hair amongst the sea of people, freshly uncarded. There were an eye contact and a smile, or so he remembered. The magician placed a finger to his lips, and performed his disappearing act.

Gongenzaka didn’t call out.

He found out, much later, from Sora’s casual chatter, that Dennis was there because he carded himself.

Gongenzaka remembered the boy who performed on the street of Synchro with him, the boy with the disarming smile who called him “Gon-chan”, the former ally who was never really an ally. He didn’t ask for reasons. Gonegnzaka had never really understood the boy called Dennis Macfield.

* * *

The magician blinked, twice. Once for surprise, once for hesitation, before breaking into a dazzling smile. (The smile didn’t look quite the same as it did three years ago.)

Dennis winked at him.

Before Gongenzaka had the time to react, Dennis broke into a fit of mad cackling. His shoulders shook as he covered his face with his hand, a frivolous looking black mask adorned his face when he straightened himself again.

“Muahahaha! It is me, Zarc the destroyer! I have taken control of this magician! I will be unstoppable! Ah.. but what’s this? My arch nemesis, the Hero of Justice!” The Magician shouted, pointing directly at him.

Gongenzaka felt his mind short-circuit.

“Wha-?” All he could do was to gape like a fish.

“Do it for the children,” mouthed Dennis.

Hopeful, frightened, excited, giggling faces turned to Gongenzaka.

Gongenzaka is no entertainer, but if his time around the You Show duel school and Kurosaki Shun meant anything, he knew it was a crime to disappoint children.

“Very well, I will stop you, Zarc! DUEL!”

* * *

And so, the battle ensued, and Zarc the Destroyer and the Hero of Justice were both down to their last 200 life points.

Gongenzaka played his hand.

“NOOOO!!! FOILED AGAIN!” Shouted Zarc the Destroyer, as he braced himself for the finale. Dennis flashed him a small smile, spread his arm, and prepared himself to fall backwards as his life points dropped to zero.

* * *

Gongenzaka remembered the small smile on Dennis’s face three years ago, when he muttered, loud enough for the two of them to hear, “ah well”, before he put on the villain mask.

He should have noticed.

He remembered seeing Dennis in the crowd on the day of the revivals, a finger to his lips.

He could have reached out.

He remembered Sora’s words, “Dennis carded himself.”

He could have asked.

* * *

Gongenzaka dashed forward without a second thought.

He caught Dennis by the arm, before the magician’s body could hit the concrete, but instead of stopping the fall, the combination of Dennis’s weight and his own momentum drew them both forward. Dennis’s eyes widened in panic, he wasn’t prepared for Gongenzaka to fall on top of him. It was going to be painful.

Instead of the concrete, Dennis found himself landing on top of Gongenzaka. In a split second, Gongenzaka had cushioned their fall.

“It’s not too late,” Gongenzaka proclaimed loudly, to Dennis’s bewildered face. He couldn’t let the tale end in a tragedy.

“It’s not too late for the Magician, everyone!” Gongenzaka found himself shouting. He wasn’t making sense. The plot of this stupid play didn’t make any sense, and he felt, frankly, very embarrassed, “The Magician who was possessed by Zarc the Destroyer was never evil. He just wanted to perform and make people smile. We can still bring him back by calling his name. His name is Dennis. Call it with me! Dennis! Dennis! Dennis!“

The audience stared at each other in confused silence, dumbfounded by the strange turn of plot.

Dennis looked thoroughly confused.

Gongenzaka felt his face burning, but it was too late to stop.

Then, a small girl called, hesitantly, “Dennis!”

“Dennis!”

“Dennis!”

“Come back to us, Dennis!”

“Come perform for us again, Dennis!”

It didn’t take long for the other children to chime in, and soon the entire small crowd was shouting Dennis’s name. The adults joined in with a shrug or two, chanting along.

Dennis’s expression was stunned, searching, hesitant.

The chanting of his name resounded with the beating of his heart, and all he could see was Gongenzaka’s face, so close before him, familiar, yet alien with age.

He let the mask slip off his face.

“Thank you, Hero of Justice,” he wrapped his arms around the stockier boy, and allowed his head to rest against Gongenzaka’s shoulder for but a moment, “thank you for saving me.”

They pulled themselves off the ground, and Dennis, with a wide beam and a grand bow, turned to his audience, “and my deepest thank to all of you, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, for calling me back!”

Gongenzaka simply stared. Dennis’s smile was radiant, so radiant.

* * *

“You didn’t have to… You don’t have to play a villain if you don’t want to,” said Gongenzaka, later in the afternoon, over their own Taiyakis.

They had gotten over the obligatory “how have you been, what have you been up to for the past three years.” And there was a short period of ensuing silence.

Dennis studied him for a moment, then looked away, pensive.

“Thanks, Gon-chan” he finally laughed, looking back, scratching his head, “coming from my Hero of Justice, that meant a lot.”

Gongenzaka was reminded of Dennis’s arms around him, and the sound of their heartbeats.

He huffed.

Gongenzaka still didn’t understand the boy named Dennis Macfield.

He could try, though.

 


End file.
